I was watching college basketball on TV for much of yesterday. I saw teams like Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, and Vanderbilt play...the first four are thick in the running for NCAA tournament spots. All are among the many schools that the FBI had been investigating for paying out money to out-recruit star players over other institutions and have been put on the list of those suspected of this cheating. And then there's Arizona, whose coach had reportedly been wiretapped as offering $100,000 to obtain a freshman standout. The question I have is what will the NCAA do about this information as we approach the time when the NCAA championship tournament will be seeded and begin? Will they say they need more time and let the tournament go on, even if many of the teams are tainted by scandal? Or will they quickly act and, according to the case-by-case severity of the charges, hand out appropriate punishments even if they involve banning certain schools from post-season play? I suspect that the first option is the one they'll take: the NCAA loves to rewrite their own history and if some of these teams are found culpable enough, they will simply go back and take away their tournament victories...as if they never happened...
I was listening to sports talk radio yesterday and heard the argument that college basketball players should be paid anyway. But by violating the current rules, the cheating schools are gaining an unfair advantage over those who are following them...and that is unacceptable. If they want to change the rules later to allow for paid athletes, then fine...but for now they should be punished if this is a part of their strategy to beat out other colleges when they are recruiting for the top talent...
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